A counterpoint to yesterday’s teabagging.

From Valerie Elverton Dixon in the Washington Post.  I’ve excerpted most of it but you can read it all, here.

However, tax time is also a time to think about what we as a nation value. Religious wisdom teaches that where your treasure lies is where your heart is. I do not understand people who claim to love the country but do not want to pay taxes, or people of faith who resist the tax collector.

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Millions of people without health care is also a national disgrace. Many professional pundits criticize President Obama for his commitment to health care in the midst of an economic crisis, but my bet is they all have health insurance. They say that we are all at fault for the economic crisis without taking stock of the fact of stagnant wages for the past few years and the necessity for many people to pay for groceries, gas and auto repairs with credit. If the country is going to go deeper into debt, let us provide health care and free up credit to people.

I do not mind paying taxes for a state of the art infrastructure, to pay teachers a wage that reflects their worth to society, for excellent schools, safe streets, and a government that helps people solve their problems and that provides a safety net for the least among us. I do mind paying taxes to make sure people who make bad business decisions do not have to pay the consequences for their decisions. I do mind my money going to Blackwater and its soldiers for hire.

Our faith traditions inform and shape our values. Those values tell us where to put our treasure and our love. The teachings of Jesus give the criteria for judgment of the nations. Did we feed the hungry? Did we give drink to the thirsty? Did we welcome the stranger? Did we clothe the naked? Did we care for the sick? Did we visit prisoners?
For me this translates into a national imperative to care for the poor; to provide food and clean water, not only to citizens of the United States, but for citizens of the world. This means a humane and inviting immigration policy. This means providing basic clothes and shelter. This means health care. This means prison reform. This means ending a retributive justice system where law enforcement is entangled with economics in a prison-industrial complex not unlike the military-industrial complex against which President Eisenhower warned. This means establishing restorative justice.

My personal commitment to these values grows from my personal commitment to try to live according to the teachings of Jesus. The man Jesus, Son of Humanity, Jewish rabbi and Muslim prophet, identified with the least and so should I. As a nation, the judgment we ought to think about is the judgment of history. A thousand years from now when generations not yet born look back upon our record for values to emulate and mistakes to avoid, what will they see?

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Get Your New T-Shirt.

Here.

An Analysis Worth Reading.

James Fallows has a point by point analysis of the Palin speech concluding that only two past convention speeches have elevated the politicians who gave them to a new level. And, Palin’s speech did not fit into this category.

…both Reagan in 1964 and Obama in 2004 were effective because, apart from their personal skills, they added something to their party’s constituency that had not been there before. Reagan began recruiting the “Reagan Democrats,” starting with white Southerners. Obama tried to recruit people tired of divisive partisanship.

Sarah Palin, at least tonight, did not seem interested in bringing anyone new into the fold. A speech that was great in the convention hall. We’ll see how it affects the electoral lineup.

She Was In Favor Of It, Before She Was Against It.

Matt Yglesias has uncovered photographic evidence of Sarah Palin’s support for the bridge to nowhere, which she (and lots of other Republican’s) claim she was against.  Not to mention her grand gluttony of pork.

Ending The Sentence Of Shame For Family Members Of The Executed.

Imagine you are ten. Imagine your father. A black hood covers his head. A rope around his neck. His arms, tied behind his back. The floor opens. The rope snaps. He’s dead. Period.

But not the end of the sentence.

It was just the beginning of the sentence for my mother. She was that ten year old. She never actually saw her father’s execution in Folsom Prison, in 1924, but she never stopped seeing it. The vision grew larger and larger until it blotted out the obvious-her art, her family, her life.

My beautiful mother was so intelligent and had such an imagination–she was capable of writing a best selling novel. But she only published two books. Her implosion began when I was 10, the same age that she was when her father was executed.

The rope snapped, the sentence continued.

Read the rest of this moving story about the impact of the death penalty on multiple generations of family members of the executed.

The Next Cheney.

Who will it be?  Visit new Democrat site for info on possible McCain #2s.

Photo Of The Day.

Senator Barack Obama steps off his campaign plane after arriving in London for the final leg of his world tour.

Picture: Reuters

Good.

“We don’t buy our own hype,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re always looking around the corner.”

From Sunday’s NY Times article by Jeff Zeleney.  

Overconfidence and cockiness could just kill him.  So, I hope the Obama people are serious about staying focused regardless of what the polls and pundits have to stay.  

Jesus In A Spoon.

And then there is this reaction to the Jesus spoon. 

Fox News Uses 8 Year Old McCain Video.

More about old fart, McCain (not that there is anything wrong with being an old fart, it’s just that he’s too old to be president).  Here’s a video showing how Fox news is trying to make McCain seem younger by using footage of McCain from his 2000 campaign.

Photo Of The Day.

Here’s a great photo I found on Curbed LA and had to share.  It’s the new arts high school, under construction in downtown LA, across the freeway from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
As Curbed LA describes it. “The angels and the mechanical monster talk quietly, plotting their attack on the evil Nokia aliens.”

In case you’re curious, here’s what the school, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au,will look like.  

Obama The Elitist. Not.

With all the Republican accusations of Obama being an “elitist” and “not one of us,” take a look at the real story from the Chicago Sun Times. How many rich kids do you know who worked at Baskin-Robbins, construction, selling trinkets in a gift shop, a deli counter and as a telemarketer?

As a high school student, Obama’s first job was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store. He also has mentioned he worked construction. And we know about the famous summer job between his second and third years of law school at Sidley Austin in Chicago, where he met Michelle, who was already at the firm. The summer before, Obama worked at Hopkins & Sutter, a law firm in Chicago.

Here’s what we know for the first time, with information passed on from the Obama campaign in response to my inquiries: As a college student at Occidental in Southern California, Obama returned home to Hawaii the summer after freshman year to sell island trinkets in a gift shop. Obama also had a summertime job at a deli counter in Hawaii — making sandwiches.

Once in New York to attend Columbia, one summer Obama worked for a private company holding a contract to process health records of either police or firefighters; I’m not sure exactly what he did.

During one school year at Columbia, Obama was a telemarketer in midtown Manhattan selling New York Times subscriptions over the phone, wearing a headset. He did not like the job because “he worried that some of the people he called couldn’t really afford the subscription.”

Been Away For A Long Time Now

Watch It!

Bill Maher’s New Rules.

Finally watched this Friday night’s show. This is worth passing along. Take a look.

When I Grow Up I Wanna Work In Advertising.

I saw this a while ago but a friend just sent me the link again and I thought I’d share it. Having be there for 20+ years it. makes me LOL every time I see it.

It’s Worse Than Crack.

Unfortunately, I’m an addict. 12-step program, here I come.

21st Century Pharisees.

It’s really hard to fathom this story. Is this really what Jesus would do?

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”

When I hear stories like this, it really makes me angry and realize the we “liberal” Christians need to work even harder to reclaim “Christianity.”